CAS Scroll 05 17 2019.Indd

The ScrScrolloll CAS Scroll - the weekly newletter of Congregation Ahavas Sholom May 17, 2019 Iyar 12, 5779 Volume 1 Number 11 Unfolded Exhibit ends at The Jewish Museum of New Jersey Thank you for all the people who came to the closing, a big thank you for Matt Gosser! Rock on! From my solo exhibition at The Jewish Museum of New Jersey: “Unfolding”, curated by Mathew Gosser We recently held a closing reception of the Unfolded exhibit at JMNJ. Nava Gidanian- Kagan gave a wonderful and informative artist talk where she spoke about her work and what fuses her artistic vision. The Iranian born Israeli Jewish mix-media artist, presented several bold large-size pieces and a multitude of smaller, intimate and highly detailed works; expanding on her vision of the fragility of life. What a timely topic in today’s world. N ava Gidanian Kagan with Mathew Gosser Interfaith vigil held for Sri Lanka Terror Victims U.S. government and civil society friends of Sri Lanka gathered at the U.S. Capitol to express sorrow and solidarity with the people of the island nation after the Easter Sunday terrorist bombings of churches and hotels that claimed more than 250 lives and wounded hundreds more. U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) and David Schweikert (R-AZ) were joined by Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Tom Vajda and a range of interfaith leaders in addressing the vigil, organized by the American Jewish Committee’s Asia Pacific Institute (API) in partnership with the Hindu American Foundation, the Interfaith Council of Metro- politan Washington, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the U.S.-India Friendship Council. “We, all of us, stand with Sri Lanka in this dark time,” said Jason Isaa- cson, AJC’s Chief Policy and Political Affairs Officer. “We assure Sri Lanka of our ongoing friendship, our solidarity, and our support.” Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) Also addressing the vigil were the Chargé d’affaires of the Sri Lankan Embassy, Sarath Dis- sanayake; Jay Kansara, of the Hindu-American Foundation; AJC API Assistant Director Nissim Reuben; Rev. Dr. Christopher L. Zacharias, of the Interfaith Council of Metropolitan Washington; Virginia L. Farris, of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Venerable Maharagama Dhammasiri Chief Prelate, of the Washington Buddhist Temple; Mari- elena Faria, of Our Lady of Good Counsel Church; Imam Hammad Ahmad, of the American Fazl Mosque; Ray Vickery, of the U.S.-India Friendship Council; and Minister (Political) Priyanga Wickramasinghe, of the Sri Lankan Embassy. All speakers spoke of the close bonds their respective communities have forged with Sri Lanka over the decades. The faith-based leaders prayed for peace, harmony and healing in Sri Lanka and around the world. Isaacson expressed “sympathy for those made victims by terror, and their suffering loved ones,” while affirming the resolve of all in the David Schweikert (R-AZ) solidarity gathering “to fight hatred and bigotry together, and encourage efforts in our Congress and the administration, as well as in other governments, to take decisive action against terror networks and those who harbor and support them.” Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust comes to NYC, Presenting the Largest Exhibition on Auschwitz in North America The Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust recently opened the most comprehensive Holocaust exhibition about Auschwitz ever exhibited in North America. Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. is produced in partnership with the international exhibition firm Musealia and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland. The groundbreaking exhibition has been curated by an international team of experts led by historian Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt. It runs through January 3, 2020 in New York City. For the first time, 74 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, a traveling exhibition dedicated to the historical significance of the camp is being presented to a U.S. audience. The exhibition’s opening marks the anniversary of VE Day or Victory in Europe Day, 1945, when the Allies cel- ebrated Nazi Germany’s surrender of its armed forces and the end of World War II in Europe. Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. arrives in New York City after the exhibition completed a successful run at Madrid’s Arte Canal Exhibition Centre, where it was extended two times, drew more than 600,000 visitors, and was one of the most visited exhibitions in Europe last year. The exhibition explores the dual identity of the camp as a physical location—the largest documented mass murder site in human history—and as a symbol of the borderless manifestation of hatred and human barbarity. Featuring more than 700 original objects and 400 photographs, mainly from the Auschwitz- Birkenau State Museum, the New York presentation of the exhibition allows visitors to experience artifacts from more than 20 international museums and institutions on view for the first time in North America, including hundreds of personal items—such as suitcases, eyeglasses, and shoes—that belonged to survivors and victims of Auschwitz. Other artifacts include: concrete posts that were part of the fence of the Auschwitz camp; part of an original barrack for prisoners from the Auschwitz III-Monowitz camp; a desk and other possessions of the first and the longest- serving Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss; a gas mask used by the SS; Picasso’s Lithograph of Prisoner; and an original German-made Model 2 freight train car used for the deportation of Jews to the ghettos and extermination camps in occupied Poland. Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. traces the development of Nazi ideology and tells the transformation of Auschwitz from an ordinary Polish town known as Oświęcim to the most sig- nificant Nazi site of the Holocaust—at which ca. 1 million Jews, and tens of thousands of others, were murdered. Victims included Polish political prisoners, Sinti and Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and those the Nazis deemed “homosexual,” “disabled,” “criminal,” “inferior,” or adversarial in countless other ways. In addition, the exhibition contains artifacts that depict the world of the perpetrators—SS men who created and operated the largest of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camps. The Museum of Jewish Heritage has incorporated into the exhibition nearly 100 rare artifacts from its collection that relay the experience of survivors and liberators who found refuge in the greater New York area. These artifacts include: Alfred Kantor’s sketchbook and portfolio that contain over 150 original paintings and drawings from Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and Schwar- zheide; the trumpet that musician Louis Bannet (acclaimed as “the Dutch Louis Armstrong”) credits for saving his life while he was imprisoned in Auschwitz; visas issued by Chiune Sugi- hara, a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania often referred to as “Japan’s Oskar Schindler”; prisoner registration forms and identification cards; personal correspondence; tickets for passage on the St. Louis; and a rescued Torah scroll from the Bornplatz Synagogue in Hamburg. Also on display from the Museum of Jewish Heritage collection will be Heinrich Himmler’s SS helmet and his annotated copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, as well as an anti-Jewish proclamation issued in 1551 by Ferdinand I that was given to Hermann Göring by German security chief Rein- hard Heydrich on the occasion of Göring’s birthday. The proclamation required Jews to identify themselves with a “yellow ring” on their clothes. Heydrich noted that, 400 years later, the Nazis were completing Ferdinand’s work. These artifacts stand as evidence of a chapter of history that must never be forgotten. To purchase Tickets to the Auschwitz Exhibit https://mjhnyc.org/purchase-tickets/ Simon Says Weekly insights from Rabbi Simon Rosebach I wrote about this topic a few years ago, but I want to revisit it because I have new thoughts about it. The topic is physical perfection of the priests and the physical perfection of sacrificial animals. The Torah in this week’s Parashah, Emor, stipulates that some animal offerings must have no physical defects. “Anything blind, or injured, or maimed,” or with a skin affliction, or with crushed testes, is not acceptable as free-will offering or as an accompaniment to an explicit vow. Animals with certain defects were accepted as a free-will offering. But the Torah dictates physical perfection of the Priests. No Priest shall minister to God (that is, butcher the animal and feed it to the Rabbi Simon Rosenbach fire) who is blind, lame, or has different length limbs, who has a broken arm or leg, who is a hunchback, or has a growth in his eye, or has a boilscar, or scurvy, or crushed testes. Why did the Torah not look to a Priest’s inner goodness? The Priest Eli, who took Samuel in, had two sons, but the Book of Samuel describes them “lawless men.” Presumably, they were perfect, physical specimens, but they were imperfect ethically. Even Samuel’s sons were lawless: they were swayed by profit, they took bribes, and they perverted justice. Presumably they too were perfect, physical specimens, but they were imperfect ethically. The Torah doesn’t describe Aaron’s two older sons, Nadav and Avihu, as “lawless.” Neverthe- less, these two perfect, physical specimens died when they offered a sacrifice in the wrong way, or at the wrong time, or with the wrong intentions. They too revealed they were ethically imperfect. In the time before the Maccabean Revolt (and probably a cause of the Maccabean Revolt), the office of the High Priest was for sale to the highest bidder. Later, the Maccabees combined the position of the king with the High Priest; that combination was surely not what the Torah wanted.

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